The “dangerous” Bolton replaces McMaster
The appointment of John Bolton as Trump’s National Security Advisor was bound to cause controversy and criticism, and so it has.
I have always felt that Bolton is smart and tough, and much (not all) of the time I have agreed with him. Is he too much an advocate of war? To be honest, I’m not certain, and it’s hard to get a straight story on it because the media doesn’t do straight stories. I’ve just spent the last hour and a half trying to sort that aspect out, and it would take a lot more time than that to come to a firm conclusion.
Bolton does seem to have a history of alienating subordinates because of his harsh treatment of them. On a personal note—for what it’s worth, and it’s probably not worth much—about two and a half years ago I went to a public speech of his at what turned out to be a very small venue, to a very small crowd. That meant it was a pretty intimate setting, and he seemed calm and thoughtful and not at all inflammatory in his rhetoric. Afterward, I spoke to him for about 20 minutes at least (that’s how small the crowd was), and he was completely pleasant and reasonable, even self-effacing. Maybe I caught him in an uncharacteristic moment, however.
Bolton is widely hated not just on the left but even by some on the right as too truculent, and the meme is going out now that he dangerous.
Our friends at the NY Times are leading the way in today’s editorial entitled “Yes, John Bolton Really Is That Dangerous”:
There are few people more likely than Mr. Bolton is to lead the country into war. His selection is a decision that is as alarming as any Mr. Trump has made so far.
Coupled with his nomination of the hard-line C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, as secretary of state, Mr. Trump is indulging his worst nationalistic instincts. Mr. Bolton, in particular, believes the United States can do what it wants without regard to international law, treaties or the political commitments of previous administrations.
Somehow the nation survived Bolton’s previous stints in international relations, including his advocating that we pull out of the International Criminal Court, and his ambassadorship to the UN:
The Economist called Bolton “the most controversial ambassador ever sent by America to the United Nations.” Some colleagues in the UN appreciated the goals Bolton was trying to achieve, but not his abrasive style. The New York Times, in its editorial The Shame of the United Nations, praised Bolton’s stance on “reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission”, saying “John Bolton, is right; Secretary-General Kofi Annan is wrong.” The Times also said that the commission at that time was composed of “some of the world’s most abusive regimes” who used their membership as cover to continue their abusiveness.
Bolton also opposed the proposed replacement for the Human Rights Commission, the UN Human Rights Council, as not going far enough for reform, saying: “We want a butterfly. We don’t intend to put lipstick on a caterpillar and call it a success.”
Bolton doesn’t talk like a diplomat, but that’s only one of the reasons so many people despise him. In Slate, you can see more of the way the rhetoric on Bolton is going to go:
It’s Time to Panic Now: John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser puts us on a path to war.
John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser””a post that requires no Senate confirmation””puts the United States on a path to war. And it’s fair to say President Donald Trump wants us on that path.
After all, Trump gave Bolton the job after the two held several conversations (despite White House chief of staff John Kelly’s orders barring Bolton from the building). And there was this remark that Trump made after firing Rex Tillerson and nominating the more hawkish Mike Pompeo to take his place: “We’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things I want.”
Bolton has repeatedly called for launching a first strike on North Korea, scuttling the nuclear arms deal with Iran, and then bombing that country too. He says and writes these things not as part of some clever “madman theory” to bring Kim Jong-un and the mullahs of Tehran to the bargaining table, but rather because he simply wants to destroy them and America’s other enemies too.
As far as I can tell, Bolton’s “call for launching a first strike on North Korea” amounts to saying that we should retain the option of pre-emptively destroying nuclear facilities if necessary, just as Israel did:
Israel has already twice struck nuclear-weapons programs in hostile states: destroying the Osirak reactor outside Baghdad in 1981 and a Syrian reactor being built by North Koreans in 2007.
This is how we should think today about the threat of nuclear warheads delivered by ballistic missiles.
I’m really not sure what’s so very controversial about that. Has any American president, even Obama, actually said that’s not an option? Is it just that Bolton speaks about it a bit more enthusiastically and/or emphatically and/or clearly?
Here, for example, is Obama on the subject of a pre-emptive strike in Iran:
Mr. Obama’s remarks built on his vow in the State of the Union address that the United States would “take no options off the table” in preventing Iran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, from acquiring a weapon. But he was more concrete in saying that those options include a “military component,” although after other steps, including diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions.
That was in 2012; we all know that the Iran deal was what happened instead. But although Obama’s rhetoric about pre-emptive strikes was certainly calmer than Bolton’s, the threat of such a strike was there.
Maybe it’s just that the world believes Bolton and never believed Obama.
As for North Korea, here’s what was going on during Bill Clinton’s administration in 1994:
At the office of the secretary of Defense in the Pentagon, a plan for a preemptive military attack on North Korea was being presented to “a small, grim group.”
“The plan was impressive,” recalled an official who was at the presentation by US military strategists. “It could be executed with only a few days’ alert, and it would entail little or no risk of US casualties during the attack.”…
And this was Obama in 2010 [emphasis mine]:
The Obama administration will release a new national nuclear-weapons strategy Tuesday that makes only modest changes to U.S. nuclear forces, leaving intact the longstanding U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons first, even against non-nuclear nations.
The post of National Security Advisor does not need confirmation, so whether or not Bolton could be confirmed (I bet he couldn’t) is not an issue.
” Is he too much an advocate of war? ” — Neo
Was Churchill?
David French has a good analysis of Bolton’s qualifications.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/john-bolton-crazy-no-the-world-is/
“What’s going on? Has Donald Trump selected a crazed warmonger to be his national-security adviser? Is Bolton going to lead us down the path to foolish war? Far from it.
Bolton is not – as some in the media would have you believe – a mere flame-throwing Fox News “talking head.” He’s a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He’s on the board of trustees of the National Review Institute. He’s a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He’s a conservative hawk, yes, but he’s squarely in the mainstream of conservative foreign-policy thought.
He’s not extreme. The reaction against him, however, is. Moreover, the reaction betrays a sad reality: The foreign-policy Left still hasn’t learned the lessons of the recent past.”
“Maybe it’s just that the world believes Bolton and never believed Obama.”
This.
I do think there will be a natural tension between President Trump and Bolton and I hope Trump has thought that through.
Trump was left with some huge problems– North Korea, Iran and to a lesser level, Syria and the quaqmire that is Afghanistan. It appears President Trump is taking a hardline approach to these issues, and it remains to be seen if he can pull back to a more non-interventionist position if these problems are stabilized.
I suspect the incredible power the President wields is a mighty aphrodisiac.
“Bolton is widely hated not just on the left but even by some on the right as too truculent, and the meme is going out now that he dangerous.”
Slowly, slowly, eliminating the swamp creatures for the swamp drainers.
“I have always felt that Bolton is smart and tough, and much (not all) of the time I have agreed with him. Is he too much an advocate of war?” [Neo]
As the ancient aphorism goes: si vis pacem, para bellum. (If one wants peace, prepare for war).
To approach diplomatic relations with adversaries who already know you won’t fight is to give them all the leverage in the negotiation. That’s how one winds up with Neville Chamberlin and agreements that are ultimately broken. Obama’s red lines that never were are a more recent case in point; meaningless verbiage to be ignored.
Negotiations to avert war are a very serious endeavor, and Bolton is criticized for his truculence. But what is wrong with a truculent National Security Advisor representing a defiant point of view? If any appointment justifies a strident and truculent voice it should be national security. He’s not the Secretary of State, here. Let our adversaries wonder what he’s whispering into the negotiators’ ears. Such negotiations can be reasonable and rationale. They will involve give-and-take and a hard-line approach may not make it into any final agreement. But cordial negotiations are the province of friends, not adversaries.
Effective people are good at confronting those who are inclined to thwart or sabotage changes in policy. So instead of being able to leak damaging info to their press contacts, all the saboteurs can do is whine about how combative and unpleasant the boss was with them. Methinks these kinds of reports about Bolton are very good indicators, and not otherwise.
Melissa Rossi, an American journalist now living in Barcelona who made a great deal of money out of her anti-Iraq War stance, and Mikal Gilmore, an editor at Rolling Stone, author of the award-winning book “Shot in the Heart” (about the execution of his older brother, Gary Gilmore), have both flipped out over Bolton — though how much of their hysteria is real and how much reflects how they wish to be seen is a question that ought be asked.
They’re both over 60 years old and came of age during the 1960s and 70s. I’m reminded of those members of the British intelligentsia who violently opposed rearming in the 1930s no matter what Hitler and Mussolini were up to — a pose which left the U.K. drastically unprepared for war in 1939. George Orwell famously called such pacifists “objectively pro-Hitler”….
Right now, in 2018, whose side will Russo and Gilmore be on should some level of war break out between America and Iran and/or North Korea? They loathe President Trump and anyone who has supported him on any issue.
There are many, many others who’ve publicly expressed similar sentiments, from The New Yorker and the New York Times, the Washington Post, on down to tiny blogs. Will any of these people rethink their positions or admit to second thoughts? How can they without losing face and alienating their friends?
Finally, finally Trump will hear a voice that speaks bluntly about uncomfortable realities.
The ONLY thing that will prevent N. Korea and Iran from achieving nuclear ICBM capability is the certainty that it will result in war with an America that has once again embraced Gen. Curtis LeMay’s POV, “If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.”
Bolton is a hard-nosed realist. He was interviewed on Fox News shortly after his Tweeted appointment. When asked what our policy toward North Korea will be, he quickly pointed out that his role was as an advisor – that our policy toward North Korea would be decided by the man elected to do that job, the President. He is confident and has firm opinions about security issues, but he also knows what his job is – to advise.
IMO Bolton is not pro war. He is, as T explains, a believer in peace through strength and the will to use your strength should it become necessary. That scares appeasers. I like the man and his style.
The left said all the same things about RWR and his advisors. And I believed them.
Look how wrong you can be.
@Mark30339
Nice point. I think it must be true that anyone with strong opinions appointed to a post in DC would find a lot of resistance from the permanent bureaucracy. Just as true of an Occupy type appointee at Treasury determined to jail some bankers trying to work through a bunch of Goldman alumni. Heck, that might be good for a mini series along the lines of “Yes, Minister.”
If the left is highly unhappy, he is the correct choice. That simple.
At least John Bolton works for the USA, which is more than can be said for some of the past holders of his varied positions.
I am confused; not that that is an unusual state.
I have never met Bolton; but, I have seen and heard him on TV countless times. He has invariably come across as a cheerful, courteous, even self-effacing man, who faces issues with a clear-minded perspective. He appears to be a person who views the world objectively and seriously. I have the sense that he does not believe that neglect, benign or otherwise, is an effective policy for dealing with difficult issues.
So, I could say that I do not know where the reputation for abrasiveness originates; but, of course, I do. I sincerely believe that for those who oppose Bolton, “abrasiveness” is short hand for he tells the truth; and has little patience for dissembling by others. Therefore, he is not “one of us” in the diplomatic world..
Oldflyer:
He appears to be a person who views the world objectively and seriously.
I’ve followed Bolton since he was nominated to be U.N. Ambassador. He is a good friend of Pam Geller (AtlasShrugged) and has helped her and appeared at various of her events over the years. As you say, he comes across as clear-minded, and I would also add, passionate and unyielding.
In reading through his many, many editorial pieces and in surveying his interviews you will find that his first impulse in solving disputes is military action. That is where the hawk reputation comes from, and it is well deserved. He was an early advocate and supporter of the Iraq War. Trump was not and remains to this day a fierce opponent.
So, why did he pick Bolton?
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